Return-Path: 
 <ant-dev-return-16635-apmail-jakarta-ant-dev-archive=jakarta.apache.org@jakarta.apache.org>
Delivered-To: apmail-jakarta-ant-dev-archive@jakarta.apache.org
Received: (qmail 43022 invoked by uid 500); 8 Aug 2001 23:38:47 -0000
Mailing-List: contact ant-dev-help@jakarta.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org
list-help: <mailto:ant-dev-help@jakarta.apache.org>
list-unsubscribe: <mailto:ant-dev-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org>
list-post: <mailto:ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org>
Delivered-To: mailing list ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org
Received: (qmail 43013 invoked from network); 8 Aug 2001 23:38:46 -0000
From: "Conor MacNeill" <conor@cortexebusiness.com.au>
To: <ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org>
Subject: Description
Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 09:43:29 +1000
Message-ID: <NDBBIMHCHMPELMBMMFIMOEKFGFAA.conor@cortexebusiness.com.au>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0)
Importance: Normal
In-Reply-To: <20010808201834.26207.qmail@icarus.apache.org>
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400
X-Spam-Rating: h31.sny.collab.net 1.6.2 0/1000/N



> -----Original Message-----
> From: sbailliez@apache.org [mailto:sbailliez@apache.org]
> Sent: Thursday, 9 August 2001 6:19 AM
> To: jakarta-ant-cvs@apache.org
> Subject: cvs commit: jakarta-ant/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/types
> Description.java
>
>
> sbailliez    01/08/08 13:18:34
>
>   Added:       docs/manual/CoreTasks description.html
>                src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/types Description.java
>   Log:

OK, I have some thoughts on this patch. Firstly, let me say that I think a
description element is a good thing. In fact I thought that was how the
target descriptions should have been done (i.e. elements not attributes). My
concern is the fact that description has been implemented as a data type. It
IS convenient to implement it that way, but conceptually it feels wrong. The
description, is not a datatype. The fact that this datatype does not hold
its own data but redirects it straight into the project object is an
indicator of this mismatch, IMHO.

BTW, You can't currently have two <description> elements although I guess we
could decide what that means and potentially concatenate them.

I would have thought this element should have been handled directly in the
ProjectHelper parsing code. It also creates little oddities such as

<project name="test" default="main">
  <description>All your buildfile are belong to us</description>
  <target name="main">
     <description>The main event</description>
  </target>

  <target name="never">
     <description>No GST, never ever</description>
  </target>
</project>

Conor